


Of Injustice and Impulsivity

by RubyofRaven



Category: Brave (2012), Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Accidental Bonding, Adoption, Alternate Universe, Bittersweet, Death Threats, Drama, Feel-good, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Introspection, Merida BAMF, Poverty, Rescue, Scottish Character, Some Humor, Threats, United States of Auradon (Disney) Is Not Perfect, Young Harry, Young Harry Hook, accidental adoption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:27:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28253145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyofRaven/pseuds/RubyofRaven
Summary: Captain Hook laughs. “Sons are better off dead. I better drown this one,” he says to the crowd with a sweep of his hook through the air, as if this were a show he’s putting on. “Unless anybody wants ‘im?” he asks mockingly, clearly not expecting an answer.“I’ll take ‘im,” Merida says, stepping forward.And this is how Queen Merida finds herself adopting one Harry Hook.
Relationships: Merida & Harry Hook
Comments: 6
Kudos: 60





	Of Injustice and Impulsivity

**Author's Note:**

> This was sparked from a small scene in my head and some dialogue, and it grew into more… just more.
> 
> -Enjoy!

She never liked the idea of the Isle of the Lost, but no one ever listened to her. 

_What does she know? The young Scottish Queen who refuses to marry? What words of wisdom could she possibly have?_

More often than not, Merida finds herself rolling her eyes during most of Audadon’s mandatory council meetings.

 _The old fools,_ she thinks.

So, after almost seven years since the isle’s _wondrous_ creation, the opportunity presents itself for her to go visit. It arrives in the form of a proper health inspection for the isle and it’s residents (something that should have been happening quite regularly, like every year _-at least_ ), and she leaps at the chance - if, by leaping, it means her bullying her way onto the guard detail, much to everyone’s seeming annoyance (not that she cares, _obviously_ ).

Which is how she finds herself squeezed into a fancy car with some fancy health and safety inspectors from Auradon, with all their papers and equipment, as they drive over a magical bridge and onto the isle. This is the first time the barrier has been opened to outsiders since its creation, which is yet another large oversight by Auradon in Merida’s opinion.

But, again, no one listens to a queen without a man by her side, or greater age, or magical powers (they seem to forget that she has a bow and arrow that she’s perfectly proficient in using).

Merida very much dislikes politics. All the subtlety and subterfuge, people saying things one way but meaning something completely different - it's just so confusing. It’d be much easier if they just came right out and said what they wanted or didn’t want and then they could all move on from there. 

But _-Nooo-_ politics and debate are an artform where the participants seem to enjoy leading each other around in circles with neither side really hearing the other. She’d much rather be on her horse and riding through the hills than be made to endure another one of the various council meetings she has to attend.

Thinking about things like this too much makes Merida almost wish she decided to abdicate the throne to one of her three brothers, not that any of them are more inclined to the position than she is, but still.

The good news, though, is that her position of power (however often ignored by many of her fellow monarchs except when dealing one on one with herself and issues involving her country) allows her this opportunity to see just what new messes Auradon has made. Hopefully, she’ll be able to find a way to start fixing them because Merida is a doer. She doesn’t sit around waiting for a posh prince to come and fix all her problems. Like her fellow warrior, Mulan, she gets things done.

However, Merida is also fairly notorious for her impulsivity. Therefore, when she finally steps out of the car with the other guards and various professionals she’s been tasked with guarding, she doesn’t really have a plan. 

Well, she does, but it’s a very basic outline consisting of: See what’s here, determine what’s wrong, then do something about it. Nothing about it is really concrete, but it follows the basics of how she lives most of her life.

The day starts off slow and gloomy as they start their trek across the isle. They were only given one day to assess the needs of the isle and it’s residents (not a week or a month like she, the Queen of Corona, and a few other leaders argued for). So things had to move fast. But, just like she assumed, there was no way they could move nearly fast enough to even begin to accurately assess the isle’s situation in a single day. 

That said, they keep up a steady pace, coming across a few villains (not that they bother to do anything other than glare and hurl a few insults), and make their meandering way around the isle, assessing the dilapidated buildings as they pass, noting the skinny, dirty children in the streets who may or may not be homeless, and the general dreariness of it all. All the while, nobody gets even close to them. All the isle residents keep to themselves and steer clear from their path, giving them a wide berth even in the otherwise crowded marketplace.

As a result, most of their assessment has to be done from a distance and at a glance. They don’t have time to linger or go into any of the buildings. Even the school that Auradon technically made sure to set up and send Yen Sid over to teach at isn't really an option for them to enter, nor are they able to meet with the man who, she assumes, is busy doing his job and _teaching._

Merida isn’t quite sure what the council is hoping to accomplish with this half-assed assessment of the isle other than, well, a half-assed assessment of the isle. Really, they couldn’t be more blatant about their lack of care for those left here. And there’s no other way to interpret it. The buildings look like they should be abandoned shacks and not people’s homes. Nothing is up to code, she doesn’t even need to be able to enter the buildings to know that. The residents are too skinny and too dirty to be healthy and a good portion of them are dressed in literal rags. If she hadn’t thought the isle was a bad idea before, she definitely would now. 

Clearly, at least some of those on the council, many of the older and louder variety, knew exactly what they were doing in condemning these villains and their children to this way of life.

By the time they’ve circled around the isle and have made their way back to their vehicle, Merida is so thoroughly disillusioned and done with the Auradonian council’s bullshit, that she almost doesn’t register the scene playing out in front of her until she’s suddenly right in the middle of it

“Ye little faerie! Get back ‘ere!”

It’s almost nightfall and she and the inspection team have made it around to what would be the portside of town if there was any trade by way of the sea to be had. As it stands, the area is just a poor excuse for a seaside marketplace with a series of docks branching out from it where people seem to be fishing or meandering around the old and broken looking ships docked there.

A young boy runs out of the crowds of the marketplace and right into her, his focus clearly having been on the voice belonging to the person he’s fleeing from.

She hardly has time to look down at his mop of brown, wild hair and make eye contact with wide sea blue eyes before a hook (a literal _hook!_ She idly wonders if the owner has a peg leg like her da, too.) snags him by the back of his shirt and pulls the boy away with a startled yelp. 

“Ye thought ye could run from me, did ye?” the owner of the hook (and no peg leg) says. The man is dressed in a long red coat and matching hat, both of which have seen better days before isle, of this she’s certain, and both of which could only belong to one pirate - the great Captain Hook.

Merida watches in distaste as the man grabs the child, who could be no older than five or six, by the arm.The grip of his remaining hand is clearly bruising while he pulls his hooked appendage free of the boy’s shirt and moves it to rest threateningly under the boy’s chin.

“Well?” the man says at the boy's silence, digging his hook into the underside of the boy’s jaw in a way that just barely avoids drawing blood. “Answer me, lad.”

“No, I jus’-”

“Jus’ what, lad?” The pirate shakes the boy. “Ye thought ye could pull one over on the great Captain Hook?”

“No!” the boy says, struggling in vain to get out of the man’s grip.

“No?” The man laughs. “Are ye lyin’ to me, lad?”

“N-no!” The boy is panicking now, eyes darting around the marketplace as a small crowd gathers near them. Noticeably, this crowd continues to stay clear of Merida and the other guards flanking the inspection team. The crowd also doesn’t do anything other than look on at this scene with something like pity or general amusement at the expense of a _child._ No one steps in, it’s like _this_ is _normal._

Captain Hook laughs. “Sons are better off dead. I better drown this one,” he says to the crowd with a sweep of his hook through the air, as if this were a show he’s putting on. “Unless anybody wants ‘im?” he asks mockingly, clearly not expecting an answer. 

And it’s then that Merida finally puts two and two together. 

This awful man must be the boy’s father, with their similar Scottish accents and dark hair. The other thing she realizes is that parents and children can have a much worse relationship than she and her mother had. She knew this in the abstract sense as leaders, like Rupunzel, brought up points against the isle’s creation. Otherwise, no one really thought about the ramifications of villains being allowed to live and procreate _-to care for children._

Like many on the council, that was one point Merida couldn’t quite imagine, even though she knew that abusive parents existed and _knew_ that some of the villains sent to the isle were proven abusive caretakers already. To have to be confronted with the truth in front of her so blatantly and expected to do nothing, watching the boy struggle in vain with tears in his eyes at the jeering crowd spurred on by his father’s taunts, feels _wrong._ After all, this was just supposed to be only a simple recon mission, one that wasn’t supposed to amount to much.

But Merida hasn’t ever been good at sitting idly by while injustices are committed in front of her.

And she’s always been impulsive.

“I’ll take ‘im,” she says, stepping forward. 

The crowd goes silent as they all turn to see just who’s spoken. Even the villainous pirate is thrown off for a moment by her interruption, his son suddenly gone limp in his grip as the boy gazes at her in open wonderment.

She can feel one of her fellow guards try to pull her back away from the pirate, but she shakes them off as she strides forward, hand gripping a dagger she’s intent on using if the no-good pirate dares to make one wrong move. “I said, I’ll take ‘im.”

This seems to reanimate the red clad man. “What?” He laughs. “Took pity on ‘im, did ye? He’s a troublesome lad- no good can come from ‘im.”

“I said,” the queen steps close enough to reach the child, “I’ll take ‘im.” She makes a point of leveling her dagger at the man’s jugular as she wraps a protective arm around the young boy, pulling him against her front. 

She and the captain share a few tense seconds of staring at one another, him assessing and her defiant, before the man relents, dropping his grip on the boy's arm. 

“Fine. Have it yer way, lass,” he tells her with a shake of his head. The pirate takes one last unreadable look at his son before departing. 

Merida doesn’t stop pointing the knife at his retreating figure until he’s out of sight, disappearing into the murmuring crowd.

\----------------------------------------------

She never expected to become a mother. 

But, she supposes, there are worse ways to go about it.

\----------------------------------------------

Years later, when the rough patch that is the child’s teen years show up, she’ll still look back on that moment of acquiring a son, _her_ son, Harry, fondly. 

Even if he’s decided to be a proper nuisance to her and the rest of the palace all afternoon. 

Somehow, the teen, much like her brothers in their own youth, had taken to playing many a prank and causing a large number of messes and general chaos since being brought to their home in Scotland. This is all much to her father and brothers’ delight, and her mum’s amused resignation. Unfortunately, just like Merida’s brothers, Harry didn’t look to be growing out of it anytime soon.

This is how she comes to find herself yelling up at her son as he climbs the stairs to leave the dining room. 

“Don’t ye take that tone with me, young man!”

“I don’ have to stand here and listen to ye.”

“Harold James of DunBroch, if yer not back down here in five seconds, I’m-I’m sendin’ the hounds after ye!”

By this time, her son has reached the landing and has his hand on the handle of the door. “Go ahead, mum. Their barks are much worse than their bites.” 

And he’s right. She’s not even really sure why she keeps threatening him with them, especially since the dogs have always been partial to him since they first met him. And he knows it. And now he’s off to go train with his sword or play the fiddle, or whatever he fancies, for the rest of the day until he grows bored and starts more chaos in another part of the castle.

Gone were the days when Harry first arrived and looked up at her with stars in his eyes and who would tell anybody who would listen, “Me new mum is the best! She threatened me da with a dagger and everythin’!”

Merida will never forget her mother’s scandalized expression upon hearing this and the subsequent questioning of if she kidnapped the boy at knife point, which, in all fairness, she sort of did (not that the boy’s sorry excuse for a father particularly seemed to care). 

Meanwhile, her father and brothers were busy giving her thumbs up, alongside nods and grins behind her mother’s back. So, she guesses they approved of her methods of child acquisition. And Harry certainly didn’t seem to mind.

And Merida, herself, didn’t mind the lengths she went to gain official adoption rights to Harry once she’d travelled back outside the barrier with him in tow all those years ago. Nor does she mind the current arguments and general destruction a teenager like Harry can - and does- get up to. 

It will continue to be a fight to get the rest of the children off the Isle of the Lost and correct the injustices wrought, but at least she was able to get one little boy to safety. 

And that’s something she’ll never regret.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m surprised this sort of AU hasn’t been brought up before.
> 
> Yes, I wrote this in part because both Harry and Merida are characters with Scottish backgrounds (or so it appears within their respective movies). Culturally speaking, if all the heroes from the stories were made to take a child wouldn't it make sense that the children would go to whoever's culture was most similar to the one they were made to leave behind? For Captain Hook, his story took place on the ocean and on the isle of Neverland, but he's not from there. He's from Scotland (as far as it would appear from the Descendants movies and the TV show Once Upon a Time).
> 
> I've seen people write stories on here where the grown versions of Peter Pan and Wendy take care of Harry, along with all the other heroes from the fairytales taking on their villains children, but that doesn't make sense from a cultural standpoint for some of them. Like, technically, for children like Harry and Mal, you’re giving them over to their colonizers. Wendy is English- England is (newsflash) a conqueror and didn’t come by Scotland by innocent means, and Aurora isn’t a Fairy but she and her family have essentially come to colonize the Moors in Maleficent’s absence.
> 
> It just doesn’t make much sense is all I’m saying. And that’s not to say that people from another culture, particularly a colonizing one, can’t raise perfectly wonderful children from other cultures. My question just is if the parents would bother teaching their children about their culture and people they originated from and the value of said culture? If the answer is no, then… well… depending on the situation, that might not be the best option for the child in terms of new parents. 
> 
> Culture should be valued.
> 
> I know I didn’t go into as much of a culture route as I could have with this fic, but it is on my mind… Food for thought.
> 
> Thanks for reading! And- as always, thank you MMR for reading and editing all my work. I appreciate you!


End file.
